panties

Etymology

Etymonline and Barnhart take it as a diminutive of pants with the suffix -y or -ie;^[2][3][4] the OED treats it as a shortening of the plural of pantaloon with the same suffix, and compares the slightly earlier pants.^[5] Dictionary.com takes it as the plural of panty, from pants and -y.^[6] Pants is itself short for pantaloons,^[5][2] named after Pantaloon, the foolish old man of the comedy of Italy, from Italian Pantalone.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Men's trousers or drawers, usually in a scornful sense: 1845, in the Knickerbocker magazine, in American English.^[5][2][4] Green's Dictionary of Slang quotes pantey's pocket, for pantaloons, from 1848.^[7]

Semantic evolution

At first a mocking word for men's trousers or shorts, or a boy's short trousers, a sense now rare,^[5][2] it came to mean women's and girls' underpants, now the usual sense: the OED's first record is from the Sydney Sportsman in 1904,^[5] while Etymonline and Barnhart date it to 1908.^[2][4] The singular panty in the same sense is recorded from 1922.^[5] The college prank of the panty raid is attested from 1952,^[2] and the phrase to get one's panties in a bunch (or in a wad, in a knot), to become annoyed, from 1985, like British to get one's knickers in a twist.^[5] In American prison and gay slang panties were also men's brief underwear, from the 1970s.^[7]

Timeline

• 1845 – men's trousers or drawers, scornfully (now rare).^[5][2][4]
• 1904 – women's or girls' underpants.^[5]
• 1922 – singular panty, in the same sense.^[5]
• 1952 – panty raid.^[2]
• 1985 – to get one's panties in a bunch.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Short underpants worn by women or girls; knickers.^[8][5]
2. get one's panties in a bunch (or in a wad): to become agitated or annoyed.^[5]
3. (rare) Men's trousers or shorts, or a boy's short trousers, usually said with scorn.^[5][2]

Related words

• pants
• pantaloon
• pantaloons
• panty

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
4. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
8. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins